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GOD'S HAND 



HUMAN EVENTS. 



31 Sermon, 



PREACHED IN THE BLEECKER STREET CHURCH ON 
THE 14th JULY, 1850. 



IN REFERENCE TO THE DEATH OF 



PRESIDENT TAYLOR 



ERSKINE MASON, D.D. 



NEW YORK: 
R. CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER, 112 FULTON STREET 

1850. 



R. Craighead, Printkr, ]12 Fulton Street. 



GOD'S HAND 

IN 

HUMAN EVENTS 

21 Sermon, 



PREACHED IN THE BLEECKER STREET CHURCH ON THE 
14th JULY, 1850. 



IN REFERENCE TO THE DEATH OF 



PRESIDENT TAYLOR 



ERSKINE MASON, D.D. 



NEW YORK: 
R. CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER, 112 FULTON STREET. 

1850. 



GOD'S HAND IN HUMAN EVENTS. 



" See now, that I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me ; I kill, and I make 
alive : I wound and I heal : neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." 

Deut. xxxii. 39. 

The language, " whatever is, is right," may, according to the 
sense in which it is used, express the essence of the most abso- 
lute fatalism, or the spirit of an intelligent scriptural faith. If 
it is designed, as is not infrequently the case, to convey the 
idea, that all events happen by a law of physical necessity, or 
irrespective of any intelligent agency, it is fatalism ; or if the 
sentiment is designed to strip man of all responsibility, because 
his conduct cannot in any sense be different from what it is, 
then it is fatalism, which we cannot too strongly condemn, 
and of the falsehood of which we need no other, nor better 
proof, than is furnished by human consciousness. The senti- 
ment is a false one, if we mean by it that everything is right, 
because in some way it will issue happily — since the morality of 
human conduct is to be determined from the end or motive of 
its author, and not from its results, which may be contrary to 
his wishes, and secured by influences over which he may have 
no control whatever. And yet the true spirit of intelligent faith 
and submission will say, " whatever is, is right," for it sees the 
hand of God in everything. In its apprehension, not an event 
takes place in the world, irrespective of divine agency. There 



is a providence presiding over and pervading all the circum- 
stances and arrangements of human life, and all the depart- 
ments of human industry, — a providence under which man 
moves in the prosecution of his own plans, with the conscious- 
ness of perfect freedom, while at the same time he is fulfilling 
the designs of the infinite and eternal God. Regarding mere 
events, then, as such, in the light of divine agency, and as hav- 
ing a specific reference to the divine purpose, it is true that 
" whatever is, is right," for everything which God does, has 
respect to a right end, and is wisely adapted to accomplish that 
end. There are some circumstances in which every man can 
appreciate the sentiment thus explained, and fully admit its 
truth; other circumstances there are in which no spirit but one 
of implicit faith can admit the rectitude, or the wisdom, or the 
goodness of the divine arrangements, and yet the same God 
acts in both cases, and in both with the same wisdom and good- 
ness and righteousness. Providential dispensations are dark 
and mysterious to us, because we cannot discover their end ; or 
if the end is known, we perceive not their adaptation to produce 
it. ,Yet in the physical system, clouds and tempests, thunder 
and lightning, are beneficial, as well as calm and sunshine. No 
man can say that the former may be dispensed with ; they may 
be necessary to bring about the good results of the latter ; and 
if we pass into another department of God's kingdom, analogy 
forbids us to look for scenes of unmingled prosperity. Their 
reverse, or scenes of darkness, adversity, and distress, may be 
as necessary to accomplish good in the moral world as storms 
and tempests are to a healthful state of the atmosphere. God's 
hand, then, we are to see in everything. There is no actuating, 
controlling agent besides him ; he kills and he makes alive, he 
wounds and he heals, he forms light and creates darkness, he 
makes peace and creates evil. " I the Lord do all these things," 
is his language, and they must all be equally good ; how can it 
be otherwise, when their character is to be determined from the 
end they contemplate, and the end in all cases is the same ? In 



view of these general remarks, 1 have two thoughts upon which 
I wish to dwell — God's agency in all the events of life — The 
great design of that agency. We have to look at these truths 
and at the duties they enforce. 

I. I begin by remarking that one of the evidences of human 
apostasy, is seen in the efforts of man to shut God out of the 
world which he has made, or aj least blind his mind to the 
proofs of his ever present, all pervading influence. It cannot be 
denied that there is a disposition in our fallen nature, if not to 
deny, at least to overlook, the agency of God, in the govern- 
ment of the things of earth. The mode in which God acts, 
is, moreover, such, that if we choose to do it, we can lose sight 
of him altogether, for out of those second causes which we see 
at work around us, and through which God's power is put forth, 
we can weave a veil, by which most effectually to hide him from 
our eyes. In those events which are aside from the ordinary 
or regular course of things, which are not to be explained upon 
any known principles, we are compelled to recognise a divine 
hand. Miraculous occurrences always bring God to view, 
because in them he acts immediately ; and brought about as they 
are, if not in a way opposed to, at least diverse from his ordinary 
mode of operation, no satisfactory method of explanation is at 
hand. It is not so, however, in those events which take place 
in accordance with what we suppose to be the established law 
of cause and effect. Nature moves on with unfailing regularity. 
The laws of the physical system are fixed and unchanging. 
We speak of occurrences as perfectly natural, as brought about 
by the laws of nature, and we rest in their unchangeaMeness 
and in the steadfastness of those constant processes witn which 
nothing appears to interfere. We thus deify nature, and put 
her supposed immutability in the place of God. It is so, not 
simply in the teachings of professed Atheism, but in the reason- 
ings and feelings of every-day life, even of those with whom 
the being of God, and Providence in all its particularity and 



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minuteness, are articles of avowed belief; where we do not the- 
oretically, we do practically shut God out of his own world and 
put nature in its place, making divine efficiency nothing but 
a name for the working; of nature's laws. This mode of think- 
ing, and feeling, and speaking, with which we are now con- 
cerned, is well nigh universal ; our daily experience in all cir- 
cumstances is familiar with it. It is peculiar to us, not simply 
in view of what are called strictly the works and processes of 
nature, but in view of everything else ; we talk in the same way 
of all the scenes in our private history ; we thus explain all the 
occurrences which are taking place around us, and the results 
we are constantly developing. If prosperity attends us in our 
earthly relations and plannings, we think a great deal of our 
own wisdom, sagacity, prudence, energy. The social system 
has its laws ; human industry has its laws. There is no part 
of God's kingdom, in the world of matter, or of mind, which is 
not under some established, fixed laws ; and when we have well 
studied these laws, and arranged our plans accordingly, and 
reached a happy issue, we are very proud of our own judgment, 
and take to ourselves the praise of all our successes. It is not 
different, in other and opposite circumstances ; reverses come, 
and we are severely tried, as our plans are failed, our relations 
broken up, and our most sanguine hopes blasted. The loss of 
health is attributed to some false step or some imprudent expos- 
ure ; if death comes up into our windows, and takes away one 
of our household, we can understand the event, as we see how 
something has been done which ought not to have been done, 
or something omitted which ought to have been done. In the 
midst of our failures, our disasters, our misfortunes, we look no 
further for an explanation, than to the stratagems of our foes, the 
treachery of friends, misplaced confidence, or injury from those 
from whom we expected nothing but favor and protection. 

Now we do not intend to brand as atheistic or wicked a 
scrupulous attention to the laws of nature, or the laws of 
industry, or any of the laws in accordance with which events 



are brought about in any department of God's kingdom. Far 
be it from me to say that a man should overlook or be uncon- 
cerned about secondary causes and instrumentalities. An 
intelligent faith in the divine purpose and agency is the parent 
of that circumspection, and care, and pains-taking which save 
us from errors, and give us energy for right action. But there 
is an agency behind all these instrumental causes, and upon 
which they are dependent, and I condemn only that disposition 
which leads us to rest in nature, or in any second causes 
whatever, and to lose sight of God. 

The fact which I wish to be distinctly recognised is, that the 
laws of nature are but the rules in accordance with which a 
divine agency is exerted, and instrumentalities are but the 
channels through which it is put forth, or the means by which 
it executes its purposes. In all the events which are happen- 
ing around us, of whatever character, God is acting as truly as 
though there were no secondary agencies whatever. God 
first lighted up the sun to shine upon our pathway, and ever 
since he has kept it bright and beaming ; and when the shades 
of evening come on, he curtains us with darkness to give us a 
fit season for repose. So, if prosperity attends us, it is God 
who opens his hand bountifully over us, and throws his pro- 
tecting arm around us. If we labor under afflictions, or trials 
of any kind, they are from God likewise ; as truly so, as though 
he had come down in a visible form, and by an immediate act 
had taken away a friend, or defeated our plans, or robbed us of 
our substance; for all the intermediate agencies or influences 
which are concerned in any of these results, are but his minis- 
ters or servants, which act no further, nor otherwise than as 
he permits or directs them. I do not know, my brethren, any- 
thing more terrible to the human mind, than the supposition 
that God may be absent from anything which takes place in the 
world. The Atheist and the Sceptic as to Divine Providence, 
do not know what their theories involve or whither they lead, 
or they would be startled by their own dreadful conception. 



My reason will not allow me lo think, no man's unperverted 
reason will allow him to think, that there may be anything 
independent of God's agency. Here alone is the thought upon 
which the human mind can stay itself. When the thunder 
comes forth from its sleeping-place, it is God who wakes it, and 
arms it with its power ; he gives wings to the wind and fury to 
the tempest. The excitements and convulsions in society are 
under his direction and control ; changes occur as he wills 
them, prosperity attends us at his order, and disaster overtakes 
us at his bidding. So human reason declares, and so the Bible 
teaches, " I form light and create darkness ; I make peace and 
create evil ; I the Lord do all these things." " Come, behold the 
works of the Lord, what desolation he hath made in the earth ; 
he breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder ; he 
burnetii the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am 
God." So fully and distinctly does inspiration set God before 
us, as concerned in all the events of whatever kind which are 
taking place around us. 

II. My second thought upon this subject is, that the agency 
of God in everything is an intelligent agency ; he never acts 
without a reason ; none of his procedures are what we under- 
stand by arbitrary acts. I am aware that God is a sovereign, 
and in sovereignty he "setteth up one, and pulleth down 
another;" but if, we mean by sovereignty anything more 
than this, that he does not make known the reasons of many 
of his procedures ; if we mean that he ever acts from caprice, 
or that he has not for every one of his doings reasons, which, 
were they made known, would satisfy every mind of the pro- 
priety of his most severe dispensations, we libel his character. 
God is a sovereign, but his is a sovereignty of wisdom, and 
truth, and goodness ; for everything he has a reason, infinitely 
wise and kind, a reason every way worthy of himself. If this 
were not so, who, under the conviction of the being and govern- 
ment of God, who could feel himself safe one moment ; where 



should there be room for trust, for peace, for happiness ? I am 
aware that there are difficulties which meet us here. I do not 
say that it is easy to exercise an unwavering faith in the 
wisdom of God, or his goodness, at all times. It is not easy, 
and that simply because we do not perceive the reasons of his 
conduct. 

What shall we say of trying dispensations ? They look like 
marks of displeasure — are they so? Is it the way of God 
uniformly to reward our virtues with prosperity, and to punish 
us for our sins by sending upon us adversity ? Such a doctrine 
makes a man's outward circumstances the criterion by which 
to judge of God's feelings towards him ; and the ungodly who. 
prosper in the world are higher in his favors than his own 
people, to whom the waters of a full cup of affliction are often 
wrung out. It is evident, as well from Scripture as from obser- 
vation, that we cannot in this way uniformly explain divine 
dispensation. There are cases, however, it must be acknow- 
ledged, in which there is nothing mysterious or inexplicable 
about divine procedures. There are cases in hich specific 
evils are seen to be the result of specific sins, where suffering 
comes as the natural result of our conduct, when it is of such 
a character that it might have been expected, in accordance 
with the established order of things, the fixed laws which God 
has impressed on our animal, mental, or social economy. So 
in the moral world, suffering oftentimes is exactly corres- 
pondent with the sin committed. The man of dissipation, the 
violator of any of nature's laws, does not need an angel from 
heaven to explain to him the diseases which rack his frame, or 
consign him to an early grave. There is, moreover, no mystery 
about God's dealings, which send upon a man the very evils he 
was preparing for another. We do not think that there was 
any darkness about that dispensation of divine providence, 
which put Haman upon the gallows he had prepared for 
Mordecai, and oftentimes retribution has followed so speedily 
and appropriately upon crime, as to force home the conviction 



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upon every mind, that there is a "God who judgeth in the 
earth." 

For the most part, however, in this world of probation, pro- 
vidential dispensations are disciplinary, designed to reprove, to 
instruct, to reform rather than to destroy; and thus, to fulfil 
purposes of love, by securing right feeling and right action upon 
the part of their subjects. God has claims upon us as his 
creatures ; and when we open his word, we find that the duties 
he therein enforces, are exactly appropriate to our circum- 
stances and relations. He claims of us, as his dependent 
creatures, that we recognise him in everything, that we put 
our confidence in him, that we give him our affections, and his 
commandments our respect and obedience. Our highest good, 
present and prospective, is inseparable from this confidence, 
this love, and this service. And I apprehend that God, in his 
providence, is but enforcing the claims which he has written in 
his word ; he sometimes sends prosperity to win our hearts, and 
inspire us with gratitude which may lead to obedience ; and 
when adversity comes, whether it be in the shape of a social 
national evil, or private personal suffering, he usually touches 
us at a point where our sensibilities are the keenest ; he wounds 
the pride which prevented us from feeling and acknowledging 
our dependence ; he weakens the strength, or exhausts the 
resources, or baffles the wisdom, or paralyses the energies in 
the possession of which we did not feel the necessity of con- 
fiding in a higher and stronger than an arm of flesh ; or he 
removes from us an idol which we had enthroned upon our 
affections, and which shut him out of the soul. In such circum- 
stances it is idle to talk of mystery, or to say that God " hideth 
himself," for we are suffering in accordance with the estab- 
lished laws of the moral world ; we can see an exact corres- 
pondence between our trials and the spirit they are designed to 
correct and rebuke. It is true they may be painful, but only 
because our feelings are wrong. There are in the mental and 
social, as in the animal systems, some diseases which render the 



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only appropriate remedies exceedingly severe ; and the wisdom 
and goodness of God, in carrying out his purposes, is as much 
to be admired as the firmness of the operator which renders 
him insensible to the cries of his patients whose life he would 
save. 

When the providence of God afflicts communities as such, 
on account of social misdoings, it must be admitted that the 
personally innocent suffer in common with the personally guilty ; 
and so, when God blesses a community, the undeserving share 
in his favors. The sun rises upon the evil and the good, the 
rain descends upon the unthankful and the unjust. The 
physical system is governed by general laws, so is the social 
system. We are so interlinked with each other in society, the 
lines of sympathy are so numerous and so interwoven, that evil 
cannot touch one part of the system without affecting all the 
rest. The whole framework of the body sympathizes in the 
injury of a particular member. It must be so, organized as we 
now are ; and though there may be evil connected with this 
arrangement, it is better that it should be so, than that every 
part, limb, and fibre of our animal organism should be endowed 
with a separate consciousness. So with human society, it is 
better that even the personally innocent should partake of com- 
mon evils and the wicked of common mercies, than that men 
should be mere individuals, isolated beings, without any mutual 
dependence or sympathy. 

I bring out, then, distinctly the following principles — there is 
no chance work in this world ; God's hand is in everything 
good, as well as evil ; every event which takes place has its 
object, it constitutes part of that discipline, which God, as the 
governor of men and nations, is constantly exercising over us 
in accordance with the principles he has given us in his holy 
word. Consequently, 

III. My third remark has reference to the state of mind 
appropriate to us in view of these general truths. I apprehend 



12 

it is with God, speaking in his providence, as it is with God 
speaking in his word ; every event in the former, as every 
truth in the latter, conveys its own appropriate lesson. Of some 
dispensations, we can very easily perceive the lesson, however 
slow we may be to learn and practise it; when mercies are 
shed down upon us, and our lives are crowned with loving 
kindness, we cannot deny the obligation of gratitude and 
obedience to their authors. Yet in these circumstances we 
are very apt to forget God, and forget our dependence and trust 
to ourselves. Pride and prosperity are generally found in 
companionship ; and when God undertakes in his providence to 
reprove us for our ingratitude and forgetfulness of him, we are 
quite as slow to learn the lesson he would teach us. Under the 
discipline of God's hand, we are apt to run to one of two 
extremes. Sometimes we think with Jonah, that we " do well 
to be angry," we become sullen, and feast upon our sorrows, 
and look upon everything through the medium of our trials ; we 
can think of nothing and regard nothing but the simple suffer- 
ing which tries us, and this which we are prone to call keen 
sensibility, this weakness, this wickedness, defeats the whole 
design of God's procedure. 

Such a state of mind, though in appearance, is not in reality 
better, certainly is no more favorable to a recognition of God, 
and a profitable study of the lessons he teaches us, than is a 
forced insensibility to his dealing which is the opposite extreme. 
Some men make up their minds to brave everything, to remain 
unmoved in any circumstances. There is a kind of stoical 
philosophy which teaches them to look with a dispassionate eye 
upon everything, and not to suffer any of the changes which 
are taking place round them to disturb their equanimity ; for 
why should we afflict ourselves with that which we cannot 
avoid, why mourn over that from which our tears will not 
effect deliverance ! and they have no higher idea of virtue than 
one which resolves it into this apathy of a speculation or 
practical atheism. Thus, by a mere exhaustion of animal 



13 

feeling, or by a forced insensibility, we are very apt to defeat 
the entire design of providential dispensations. 

God, my brethren, means that we shall feel when he tries us ; 
he cannot accomplish his purpose otherwise than by exciting 
feeling, but if we suffer feeling to blind us to His presence and 
agency, the result is the same as though we should wrap our- 
selves in the mantle of stoical insensibility. Our duty and our 
safety is to recognise God's hand, and to hear his voice in 
everything he does, and to learn and practise the lessons he is 
teaching us. He speaks to us in his word ; we are not in a 
right state of mind unless we hear what he says, learn what he 
teaches, and do what he commands. He speaks to us in his 
providence, as truly as he does in his word, sometimes in 
accents more, sometimes less, startling and distinct ; and our 
state is not right, unless we listen to him, inquire into the 
lesson he would teach us, and when learned practise it. Happy 
the man who can thus regard the work of the Lord, and con- 
sider the operations of his hand ! Happy the man with whom 
providential dealings have the effect of bringing him to 
recognise the hand of him who ruleth over all, to place his con- 
fidence in him, who alone is worthy of human trust, and to serve 
him who alone is worthy of human obedience ! Such a lesson, 
if well learned, is worth all its cost. No one has ever yet 
learned it who did not confess that it amply repaid him for all 
the discipline by which he has been instructed, and acknowledge 
that God's ways were wise even when he walked in darkness, 
and good though his path has been through the deep waters. 

It is almost needless for me to say, my brethren, that the 
general train of thought in which we have been indulging, has 
been suggested by an event which has taken place since last 
we were assembled in this sanctuary, and which has produced 
a deep impression upon the mind of this nation, as an event of 
more than ordinary moment, and as calculated to lead to results, 
the nature of which we are not yet able to anticipate. The 
President of these United States has been suddenly removed by 



14 

death. All the circumstances of the case — the place he 
occupied in public estimation; the general confidence, aside 
from all political views, reposed in his integrity, his purity, his 
patriotism as a man, his uprightness and firmness as a civil 
officer ; the peculiar state of the national affairs ; and the questions 
which are now agitated, affecting vital interests, and even the 
permanency of our institutions ; conspire to invest his death with 
more than ordinary interest. Whatever may be men's views of 
national policy, on whichever side of the line which divides this 
nation into two great parties, men may range themselves, all feel 
that there is a solemnity in the event because consequences of 
amazing moment must flow from it. The aspect of our national 
affairs will, in all probability, undergo a material change ; whether 
for the better or worse, time will determine. I do not stand here 
to-day to speak of this event in a political but in a moral point of 
view ; I look at it now not with the eye of a politician, but with 
the eye of a minister of Jesus Christ, and would desire to shed 
upon it the light of the subject we have been considering. 

I look upon it as a marked Providence. It was not a fortuity, 
the death of our chief magistrate. I see in it the hand of God, 
who " setteth up one and putteth down another ;" I hear in it the 
voice of God speaking to the heart of this nation. You may 
make as much as you please of second causes, but the death- 
blow had not fallen upon the capital of our country, except as 
God directed it ; it has fallen as to the person, the time, the cir- 
cumstances in exact accordance with divine arrangements, and 
with a distinct reference to some specific purpose. We do not 
pretend to any acquaintance with the secresies of the divine 
counsels ; we cannot tell what God means to do, or what God 
means to prevent by this dispensation of his Providence ; we 
are confident only of this, that he has an object, and one every 
way worthy of himself, and which, when accomplished, shall 
fully justify his procedure. If God has an object to accomplish 
which this event is designed to further, he has likewise some 
lessons, which in this way he designs to teach to this nation. 



15 

What they all are, we can hardly pretend to say ; the shock has 
been so great and so sudden, that the mind has not sufficiently 
recovered from it, to enable it calmly to look upon the event 
and study out its true interpretation. I make no pretensions to 
the spirit of one who, Daniel-like, can " make known visions and 
declare the interpretation thereof," and yet it strikes me, that 
there are some things which, in view of this event, are deserving 
of our notice. 

We have been passing through a season of great political 
excitement ; sectional interests have been arrayed in conflict 
with each other, and passions more than judgment have been 
swaying the minds of men. It is not uncharitable to suppose, 
nay, we must be blind to many very marked indications not to 
believe, that in some cases personal feeling and personal ambi- 
tion have added fierceness to the strife in which we have been 
engaged. There must have been other influences than those of 
love of country, of pure, simple-minded patriotism at work to 
describe the scenes which have been enacted ; they seem to 
evince a strife for sectional or personal ascendency, rather 
than a desire to advance our country's welfare. Now in the 
midst of these stirring scenes, in the midst of these excitements 
and conflicts of the passions, God speaks, and speaks in a way 
which compels attention ; he removes in a moment the man upon 
whom all eyes are fixed, and whose every movement is watched. 
He breaks up human plannings ; he speaks to human passions, 
and says " be still." He compels a pause of thought, and forces 
upon men an opportunity for passion to subside, and judgment 
to assume the supremacy, and places them in circumstances 
which, as they bring before them God, who holds all men in his 
hands, force them to think calmly. 

And then see what a lesson God reads to the subjects of 
mere personal ambition ; see what is the end of such ambition, 
what the worth of all "the pomp of heraldry and pride of 
power ;" you grasp it, and it is a shadow ; you seize it, and hold 
it but for a moment ; you may gain your object, and the result 



16 

of your ambition and toil will be at last the privilege of dying 
crowned with earthly honors, having a splendid burial, and 
reposing under a sculptured monument. Would that our men 
of place and power might rightly interpret this dispensation, 
and learn what they are, and whose they are ! They are not 
their own, but God's ; he raises them up for his own purposes, • 
and when they have answered his ends, he removes them. Per- 
sonal honor, personal greatness, are of very little moment in 
God's estimation ; he uses men for the public good, and when he 
has done with them he sets them aside. And if the dispensa- 
tion over which we mourn shall have but the effect of stilling 
human passions and bringing men to think and act, in reference 
to the conflicting interests which are to be reconciled, under a 
sense of their responsibility to God — if it shall teach our men 
of place and influence of how little worth they are personally, 
that they are but instruments in God's hand, and to govern 
themselves accordingly, the result will be worth all its cost, and 
he upon whom so many eyes have been fixed, shall have, under 
God, accomplished more by his death than he could have effected 
even by a long and useful life. 

I have said that God in this event has spoken to the heart of 
the nation, and in it I think he is teaching us as a people, a 
lesson which we ought, but are very slow to learn. We are apt 
as a people, if I do not greatly mistake our characteristics, to 
place our confidence in men, and in some peculiar measures 
with which certain men are identified, rather than in those great 
principles of national righteousness which God has revealed in 
his holy word. The evil of which we now speak is not pecu- 
liar to one or to another, but to all classes of society, and all 
political divisions. In reference to measures of policy I know 
there is a line of division running through the community, and 
I do not to-day put myself upon either side of that line. I 
speak of a feeling belonging to all, and which I apprehend God 
in this providence has signally rebuked. The language of his 
dealings is plainly this, " Cease ye from man whose breath is in 



17 

his nostrils." The peace, the security, the happiness of this 
nation does not depend ultimately upon any one man, nor upon 
any set of men, upon any measure or set of measures. You 
must go back of all these to look for our national securities, you 
must find them in national righteousness. Sin will degrade, and 
righteousness will exalt a people, whatever may be their policy 
and whoever may be their rulers. If we recognise God, and 
our obligations ; if we have a constant regard to the eternal 
laws of right as laid down in His statute book ; if the influence 
of God's Bible is diffused through society, regulating the rela- 
tions which subsist between man and man ; if they find their 
way into our council chambers and halls of legislation, so that 
right and truth, rather than expediency and policy, shall control 
our national measures — then we are safe, then shall we be 
happy and prosperous, whoever may administer our affairs. But 
if otherwise, no wisdom, no energy, no power can save us ; we 
shall dig the grave of our political greatness, and others shall 
point to us hereafter, as an illustration of the truth of God, " the 
nation that will not serve thee shall perish." 

History informs us that the palmy days of ancient kingdoms 
and republics were those when their subjects were marked by a 
devout and punctual observance of their religious ceremonies, 
and when they reverently bowed before their altars. But when 
the scene was changed, when in the insolence of power and 
pride of royalty, their rulers inquired " who is lord over us," when 
sensual indulgence, fostered by increasing wealth, led men to 
forget their God and forsake their altars, their corruption spread, 
and judgment commenced and hurried on to its dreadful con- 
summation. 

My hearers will not understand me, in this illustration, as say- 
ing that there were in any of the superstitious ceremonials of 
a heathen world, in themselves considered, the elements of 
national prosperity. Far from it; but 1 mean to convey the 
idea, that the recognition of a higher power, involving a sense 

2 



18 

of accountability, and the anticipations of a future state of 
rewards and punishments, is the great conservative influence of 
national uprightness, and of course of national prosperity. God 
grant that we may understand, and instead of putting our con- 
fidence in man whose breath departs, we may put it in that 
righteousness which exalteth a people. You will indulge me in 
one more remark before I close, more of a personal character, 
yet suggested by the event of which we have been speaking. 

A nation's throes tell how melancholy death is in certain cir- 
cumstances. The relations of the person whose departure we 
lament, explain the deep feeling which pervades the entire com- 
munity. If this is so, my brethren, let us remember that each 
one of us carries within him a spirit sustaining relations far 
more interesting and enduring because immortal, than those 
which belonged to the head of this nation as such ; and if his 
death, because of his connexions, has produced such a deep 
sensation, how, my brethren — you will allow the question — how 
ought we to feel at the obsequies of a lost soul ? Where shall 
we find tears to weep over such an event ? Could we appre- 
ciate such a calamity to its full extent, what si;ms of sorrow 
should be equal to the occasion ? The sun might hide his light 
and the moon her brightness, but that would not equal the occa- 
sion ; nothing of the kind would correspond with the magnitude 
of the loss involved in the death of a human soul. If the 
whole frame of nature should become animated and vocal, it 
could not utter a groan too deep or a cry too piercing to express 
the extent and dreadfulness of such a catastrophe. 

My hearer, you have a soul of such relations and this incon- 
ceivable worth. If you are not at peace with God, and do not 
become one with Jesus Christ, its obsequies are coming; and 
when its dirge shall be sung, amid the voices which shall chant 
its requiem and utter the deep and bitter lamentation, yours 
will be the loudest. 

And now we can but pray that the providence of which we 



19 

have been speaking to-day, may be sanctified to our beloved 
country ; that he whose hand we recognise, would sustain our 
interests, and bring good out of evil ; and to each one of our- 
selves, leading us to "prepare to meet our God." 



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